The 4% Rule is the well-worn retirement planning advice that one can take a first year withdrawal of 4% from a reasonably well-diversified portfolio (e.g., $40,000 from a $1 million portfolio) and then adjust that annual withdrawal for inflation in subsequent years with considerable safety. The concept is buttressed by several academic studies using historical stock market returns.

If you can hold on to most of the 2% per year or so that the average mutual fund and financial advisor skim from their clients annually, you'll only need to save about half as much money for retirement.

This may be more of a cultural thing. If you grew up in a wealthier family where people had financial advisors, you may think it's just the right thing to do. But the arithmetic of losing 2% per annum to a financial advisor over 50 or 60 years is pretty clear -- they're going to take half your money, and you're going to have to save twice as much to retire.

Fortunately, early retirees living off an investment portfolio who focus on capital gains in preference to interest and dividend income don't have to sit still while they're mauled by Big Healthcare. Even a retiree with a multi-million dollar nest egg should be able to arrange their retirement withdrawals to minimize income and maximize their Obamacare tax credit.

There's a big difference in health insurance costs between the Red States and Blue States. If you live in a Red State that hasn't done the Obamacare Medicaid Expansion, your state isn't getting billions of dollars per year in Federal Funds, your private insurance premiums are being jacked to make up the shortfall, and rural hospitals are closing. If you live in one of the largely Blue States that are taking advantage of the Trump Administration's dysfunction on Obamacare by loading the burden of Cost Sharing Reductions (CSRs) on their exchanges' Silver Plans, you can get your health insurance much cheaper. In my zip code in Deep Blue Washington State you can now get a $0/month Bronze Plan with an income of more than $40,000/year. That's a 4% withdrawal from a $1 MM+ portfolio.

"The Man" is working against you in your efforts to retire early. Don't let the financial services industry suck your investment accounts dry with fees. And choose your state of residence wisely -- the full cost of a private health insurance premium for a 60-year-old is more than most peoples' mortgage payment. Paying attention to the big picture will make it easier for you to retire early.